1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of consumer electronics, and in particular to a player device that provides rhythm-synchronized sequential playback of a music collection, emulating the music selection and synchronization actions of a “disk-jockey”, or “DJ”.
2. Description of Related Art
Technologies exist that allow a consumer to access large collections of music. On a typical computer system with a Compact Disk (CD) player and giga-bytes of disk memory, for example, a user can record hundreds or thousands of songs in MPEG format. Portable MP3 players are available that can store hours of music; multi-disk CD players are available that can accommodate hundreds of CDs; subscription services are available that allow users access to a virtually unlimited amount of music via the Internet; and so on.
Most playback devices that have access to a collection of music include options for automated playback, and particularly, an option for “random” or “shuffle” playback. Some systems allow for a selective playback of a subset of the collection of music, based on one or more characteristics associated with each song. For example, a user may request a random playback of “rock” songs, or “oldies”, or “classics”, and so on. A variety of systems are available that provide for the characterizing and cataloguing of songs to facilitate an efficient selection process.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,616,876, “SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR SELECTING MUSIC ON THE BASIS OF SUBJECTIVE CONTENT”, issued Apr. 1, 1997 to Jonathan C. Cluts, and incorporated by reference herein, presents a characterization system wherein a plurality of subjective characteristics are used to characterize music pieces. A user of the system is provided a set of slider-bars corresponding to each characteristic. For example, a characteristic may be “gender”. If a user currently prefers female singers, the user adjusts the slider-bar of the gender characteristic toward “female”, depending upon how strongly the user's current preference is. Another characteristic may be “beat”, and the user adjusts the corresponding slider-bar between fast and slow. Songs in a collection are characterized by the gender(s) of the performer(s), and the beat of the song. When set to automatically play songs from the collection, the songs that have characteristics that correspond to the user's settings on the slider-bars are preferably selected.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,957, “BIBLIOGRAPHIC MUSIC DATA BASE WITH NORMALIZED MUSIC THEMES”, issued Oct. 5, 1999 to Mark B. Hoffberg, and incorporated by reference herein, presents a characterization system that is based on the musical characteristics of each song, such as a sequence of notes of the song that are memorable. A user provides an input sequence by humming, manipulating keys on a keyboard, tapping the rhythm, and so on, and the system attempts to match the user's input sequence to a particular song in the collection. For example, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is characterized by a sequence of introductory notes, and the system retrieves the symphony when a user provides a “DA-DA-DADUMMM” musical phrase. In like manner, the system can be configured to retrieve a list of songs that have similar characteristics to the user's input sequence. In the context of this disclosure, a system can be configured to randomly play back each of the songs in a list that is created by the user's input sequence.
Although an automated playback system may be configured to play songs that match a select set of subjective or objective criteria, the playback of these songs is rarely perceived as a professional presentation, such as provided by a professional disk-jockey. Professional disk-jockeys at entertainment functions often provide a mix of songs that corresponds to a selected theme, or set of characteristics, but the sequencing of the songs by a professional is rarely perceived as being “random”, per se. A professional disk-jockey, for example, will generally avoid sequencing a song that is discordant with, or otherwise musically contrary to, the preceding song. Preferably, one song leads into another, thereby providing a generally continuous playback of songs, without bringing attention to the transition between songs, and often allowing dancers to continue to dance through the transition between songs without abruptly changing their step.